A Treasure Cursed
by SwoonsAndSais
Summary: Based loosely on Susan Kay's novel. Erik tells Christine a bedtime story while she visits him in the Lair, but it's difficult to tell a ghost story better than that which one lives.


**A Treasure Cursed**

"_I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devastating emotions that control man, nations, life."_  
Edgar Rice Burroghs

There came a time, I thought to myself, when all childish fantasies were to be brought to a close and one was required to grow up and shoulder the weight of responsibilities without question. This is how one would retain their dignity and carry on their life with pride. Once they placed all dragons and elves into a small drawer to be kept dusty and safe, they must remain locked away until they had their own children and could once again indulge in such nonsense from a condescending and doting point of view.

That time, for me, was not now.

Erik and I were seated in front of the fireplace and had just finished the after supper tea. My mouth was still fresh from the taste of the little chocolate mint he had left on my saucer as a treat, and I was flushed from heat and drowsiness. It was a gentle, lulling feeling that I was loathe to give up in order to retreat to my own cold chambers. Here the light was so inviting; it was hard to imagine that we were not in the shared parlor of some elegant flat, cozy and warm. He sat, as usual in the evenings, presiding over our time with stately grace, legs crossed casually and a tome of some ancient and lofty origin open across his lap. The glow of the firelight cast shadows on his throat and over the porcelain of his mask, giving it the illusion for a brief moment of normal skin. His amber eyes were flitting back and forth over the words as he read them, though they were hard to discern in shadow from the way they sunk back, surrounded by black skin.

I was seated not in the matching wingback chair, but on the rug next to the fire, embroidering by habit as an excuse to watch him. I never had any real skill with a needle, so I often found that if I did not concentrate solely on the task at hand that my roses would wither and bleed over the lilies and so on. Tonight was an entirely lost cause, and I realized belatedly with some dismay that I had turned the stems of my flowers the same color purple as the pansies. I sighed.

He looked up from his book, as if reminded that I was still there by the first human sound I had made in an hour. The visible corner of his lips turned up slightly.

"Are you discontent with your work, my dear?" His voice was amused in that lightly indulgent way that only I must have ever known.

I sighed again, and showed him what had occurred – quite on its own, I might add – to my threaded garden and he chuckled.

"My mind is elsewhere," I admitted, and wrinkled my nose at the basket of threads and needles beside me. I placed my current project in there to be dealt with later.

"I see," he said, and closed his book with a gentle but weighty thump. Setting it aside, he relaxed back into the plush magenta upholstery. "And what shall we do to occupy your flighty mind?"

I blushed, chagrinned at having him think me a child who needed constant minding to be entertained. "I am fine, Erik. Perhaps I'll find a book to read in the library, or retire early."

"Are you weary, Christine?" His eyes flicked to mine, and I shifted.

"No," I admitted, unable to lie to that peculiar gaze.

"Well," he said, by way of dismissal. "Then we shall occupy ourselves more readily."

Because he seemed so willing to comply, I found it in myself to ask him for the one thing that would delight me most at the time.

"Oh, Erik," I began eagerly. "Won't you tell me a story? Perhaps from your travels?"

An unreadable emotion flashed over his face, but it was gone in an instant. It became the same warm expression that meant he was amused by my more childlike behavior. I held my breath, not daring to hope.

After a moment, he shook his head, chuckling. "Of course, dear child. I could deny you nothing."

I could not hide my girlish glee, but I held on for a moment more. "Erik, if you would rather not, I would have you do it for pleasure – not out of some sense of duty."

"Christine, you are my pleasure."

I felt myself grow warm, but a smile bloomed on my lips, pretty as my embroidered roses were meant to be. He nodded, and made an eloquent gesture that told me to make myself comfortable. I did so, arranging my skirts and leaning back against the heavenly cushions of his expensive chair.

"What sort of story would you like, then?"

I thought about it momentarily, and in a burst of impishness, I said "A ghost story."

He paused, and his tongue darted out to moisten his lips.

"My dear…you are in one."

I was silenced by this and could find nothing to say, but before I could apologize, he settled back into his chair and re-crossed his legs. "A ghost story…hmmn. Yes, I think I know of one that might suffice."

He crossed his hands in his lap and cocked his head towards the fireplace. "Do you see that statuette on the mantelpiece, Christine?"

I looked up, past a vase of crystal with delicate pearl snowdrops to see the figure of a nightingale made entirely of bloodstone, pure gold swirls inlaid with at least five dozen glittering diamonds. I was stricken by its beauty, and could not believe that I had never noticed its presence before. He chuckled, and I realized suddenly that I must be gaping.

"Erik, my goodness, that must be worth an absolute fortune!"

"I daresay," he nodded in agreement. "I am rather fond of it."

I could see why. It was exquisite. I peered at the eyes a bit closer. "Are those sapphires?"

"Diamonds. More diamonds, of a rare sort."

I was taken quite aback. My own meager salary at the Opera would never buy this if I sang for the rest of my life until my heart gave up.

"I came to acquire that during my brief stay in Russia," he explained, bringing me back to the real purpose of the piece. He gestured towards it. "A man there at Nijni-Novgorod was going from stall to stall, seeing if there was anyone who would take the piece from him. He was truly distraught."

"Surely he did not expect anyone at a marketplace to have the means to purchase it, even one so large as that."

Erik shook his head, steepling his fingers. "He was not looking to sell it. Merely to be rid of it."

At my wide eyed stare, his lips quirked. "He was an honest man, as they go, and was taking care to inform anyone of the fact that this lovely nightingale was cursed." He watched to see if I would interrupt again, I suppose, and continued when he was satisfied that I would not. "I was in my tent, rosining my bow, when I heard him speaking to a woman just outside the flap. Interested, I set the bow down and listened. 'Please Madame,' he pleaded with her. 'It is quite beautiful and plays the loveliest tune. You may sell if it you wish, only please take it from me.' She must have said no, for when I stood and found him, he was seated with his head in his hands and the bird beside him.'

'Sir,' I began, letting the flap fall closed and standing in front of him. 'What is the trouble with your trinket there?'

He looked up at me with sad eyes, so full of despair that he showed no interest in my mask. He was ragged and scruffy, with lank hair and a very desperate feeling about him. Had I been inclined to pity, I might have gifted it to him. As it was, I motioned to the treasure at his side.

'Such a beautiful thing,' I began, and he flinched. 'Won't it play?'

'No, Sir,' he said, and held it up to me. 'It is cursed and plays only when I most wish that it would not.'"

Erik's voice, always beautiful when he spoke, took on a low and musical quality that painted the image almost as if I were standing there. Before my eyes were a younger Erik, resplendent in his formal black and purple magician's dress, and the sad Russian man with the beautiful nightingale on Erik's mantelpiece. I could hear and smell the fair happening outside of their private circle, palpable and real. I was utterly entranced and only aware of it on some base level. He went on, and I watched his story unfold before my eyes.

"'Cursed?' I asked him, and knelt beside him to examine it. I am, you see, rather adept at things mechanical. I thought perhaps he was being superstitious and it might present an interesting challenge.

"'Yes, Sir. It was my wife's, you see,' he managed through a newly-brimming haze of tears. 'It was given to me by the tsarina from her personal collection, for the services I performed for her in designing her formal dresses for several years. So pleased was she with my work and artistry that she gave me this nightingale to give to my wife at Christmas. It played the most beautiful song, Sir, clear and pure as any real nightingale. Truly a magnificent work of art. My wife was so pleased…'

"The sentiment of it was lost upon me, but I was intrigued by what he had said of the mechanics of it. 'Do go on,' I urged him, never taking my eyes off it.

"'Later that year, I was pinning a string of pearls to the tsarina's dress when she knelt and kissed me. I was a handsome youth at the time, you see, and her husband was a barbarian. I imagine she was lonely. Yet, at the same time, she was incredibly wicked. 'Make love to me,' she whispered in my ear. 'I cannot,' I had said gently. I loved my wife very much and could not bear to be unfaithful to her.

"'You will do it,' she said firmly, 'or you will not live to see your wife again. I shall tell the guards you have raped me and you will be shot in the streets.' I made love to her on the very chaise I had her lounging on to adjust her dress. I was so distraught that I went home and cried, awaiting my wife's return from the market. The night grew longer and still she did not return. When the very early morning was growing frosty there was a knock on my door, revealing an officer on my doorstep with the body of my wife. She had been hit by a carriage, he said, and had died in the afternoon. I was shattered. She lay on our bed, cold and stiff, and I cried for shame. When I finally fell asleep, I found myself awakened by the music of the nightingale statue. I opened my eyes and found my wife's face over mine, pale and deathly as the music went on, staring at me with eyes made entirely of red light. I could not move for fright, and eventually she disappeared as the cock crowed the morning. The next day I buried her, and the statue did not trill…but the night after that, the same thing happened. The statue sang and my wife appeared above me, hellish and groaning. She continues to come to me night after night. Sir, I have not slept in weeks.'"

Here, Erik paused, for I was staring now at the nightingale in horror. He followed my gaze and we both peered at its blue diamond eyes for a moment in silence. A log in the fire popped and I jumped.

"You took it, Erik?" I said in a small voice. "After all of that, you took it?"

He was quiet for a moment, then went on as if I had not said anything.

"I took it. I told him that I would take it and even tried to reward him with a handful of gold coins, but he protested, saying that to profit from the exchange would only damn him further. 'Sir, I must insist that you take heed though. This statue truly is cursed,' he said even as he pressed it into my hands. I looked at it thoughtfully and then at him, and he seemed all at once to suddenly notice the mask that I was wearing. 'My good Sir,' I had said to him, backing away into my tent. 'I am cursed already.'"

We were quiet as he stared thoughtfully into the fire. My eyes were fixed on the statue above the mantelpiece. Where I had before been enchanted, now I was frightened of its beauty.

"And…has it played since?" I asked, timidly.

"Oh yes," he said with some nonchalance. "I see his wife walking these corridors from time to time whenever the bird sings. She cannot be at ease. The knowledge of a love damaged does tend to keep one up at night, you know."

There was gooseflesh on my arms now as I thought of the dark passageways that lead to my even darker room.

"Surely," I began hesitantly. "You are jesting. There are no such things as ghosts."

We met eyes then, mine frightened and his unreadable. He stood in a graceful movement, crossing the distance between us and tipping up my chin with his gloved hand.

"I assure you, my dear," he said gravely. "There are."

I shivered down to my core. "Erik, if-"

"Shall we retire?"

I could do nothing but nod and found myself suddenly filled with childish terror. He bowed low and bid me goodnight as he always did, and I was suddenly alone with my candle on the way to my bedchamber, jumping at every shifting shadow. _Silly child, _I chided myself. _You asked for a story and he gave you one, nothing more. It is merely a story he fabricated to amuse you. You are perfectly fine. _

Even as I said this I bolted my door, wondering if perhaps ghosts really were able to drift through walls.

I brushed my hair quickly, unable to look into the mirror as I did so for fear of seeing something behind me. I could not even close my eyes as I splashed my face with water in the basin near the bed. Finally, I had nothing else with which to occupy myself that I might put off climbing into my large bed alone.

It was cold, and every sound in the shadows sent chills along my spine. Some time later, before my candle guttered and went out, I was asleep.

It was another few hours before I awoke from a troubled slumber by the sound of trilling music from the sitting room.

My body froze and locked up, rendering me unable to even reach for the coverlet. I was waiting for it, and knew that inevitably I would see the Russian man's wife coming through my wall. I stared at it, both horrified and fixated, afraid that if I looked anywhere else I would miss her and turn to find her directly by my bedside. The room grew chill. I could no longer breathe.

The door creaked open slowly of its own accord. The light of a candle moving down the hallway cast shadows against the visible portion of the wall. My breath came quickly now, and my hands were grasping and releasing the coverlet in a panicked rhythm. My heart beat so strongly that I felt I might faint.

I saw a flash of white in the doorway, and remembered no more.

It was creeping close to dawn when Erik returned to his own bed. He knew that Christine had been frightened as he sent her off to bed, so he had checked in on her some few hours later. He found her relaxed, deeply asleep with the lace of her nightgown askew at her throat. Her cheeks were blanched and she looked unusually pale, but she had no fever. He would have to make sure that she was not feeling ill come morning.

He had stayed with her for a bit, watching the candle he had brought with him slowly burn down the hour. He hummed the nightingale's tune, fresh in his mind from where he had wound it in the parlor a few short minutes before. The story of the Russian man had sparked nostalgia in him to hear the bird sing as he had not done in a year or more. He could remember the night of the treasure's completion as the night that Nadir had shown himself for the first time at his act. The bird represented for him a changing point in his life, whether he was fond of it or no.

Of course, the story of it being cursed was nonsense he had invented to amuse Christine. He would not mention to her that he himself had made that nightingale to engage his mind between acts at Nijni-Novgorod with diamonds stolen from the jewelry designers of the Tsar.

She had wanted a ghost story, of all things. As if he had not given her enough of one already.

Well, she had gotten one. He looked at the bird in his hands, stroking his fingers over the golden swirls. His beautiful, cursed nightingale had gotten what she asked for, as she normally did. He was helpless, as usual, and had to comply.

From what he could tell, it was approaching morning, and he had not slept at all.

It was unsurprising of course, he thought as he made his way down the dark corridor without need of light, en route to the velvet lined coffin that he called a bed. Insomnia was no stranger to Erik's troubled mind and heart.

After all…

The knowledge of a love damaged does tend to keep one up at night, you know.


End file.
